7 Wealthy Mentalities of Successful People

Article source: 7 Wealthy Mentalities of Successful People

There are no substitutes if you want to accomplish your lofty goals. 

Everyone wants to be successful. Most want to be wealthy. So why don’t we ever end up getting there? Although most of us face detours to our big dreams, it’s typically not external factors keeping us from achieving our dreams. It’s internal barriers that stop us.

If you want to build wealth and be successful, you first need to have the right mentalities.

1. Goals are golden. 

It’s no secret there’s a positive correlation between setting goals and overall productivity—professionals who have a measurable goal to work for are far more productive than those who are just “winging it.” But being goal-oriented and treating goals as “golden” is about more than just setting them in the first place. You have to treat them as a major priority, making heavy sacrifices to achieve them and breaking them down into smaller chunks when necessary. Creating your goals is just the first step of the process—you also need to have the follow-through to make them count.

2. The future is more important than the present. 

This concept, from a subjective standpoint, is debatable. You could easily argue that living “in the moment” is more important than worrying about the future, but people who are future-oriented, that is to say, people who make decisions based on future payoffs, are far more likely to be successful. Future-oriented people aren’t afraid to make short-term sacrifices if it means a long-term gain, and they aren’t tempted to engage in momentary pleasures that would rob them of some future payoff. Their future selves are the main priority.

3. Failure isn’t a bad thing. 

The fear of failure permeates our society and it leads millions to live their lives in complacency. For example, you’re working in a job you hate with a pay and advancement ceiling. You have the option to quit and start your own business, but you’re so afraid of failing that you never give it a real shot. Failure is always a possibility and as a society we need to stop decrying it. Successful people see failure as a necessary step of the process and a valuable learning opportunity. Moreover, few plans are executed smoothly—how you handle them when they go wrong is more important than when they go right.

4. Opportunities exist everywhere.

Opportunities arise when you least expect them. They may take the form of hidden strengths in an idea you were about to toss, or a potential partnership with a stranger you met in a coffee shop. When you adopt the mindset that opportunities truly exist everywhere, in every moment of every day, you’ll be on the lookout for them. By that virtue alone, you’ll discover more opportunities for yourself, and you’ll end up earning far more value in your life.

5. Calculated risks are important. 

Risks are scary, but without them, there’s substantially less room to grow. Studies suggest that the wealthiest, most successful professionals of our time are ones who weren’t afraid to take a calculated risk—they went against the grain, gambled on an idea they thought was worth the investment and weren’t afraid to stake possible sacrifices. If you aren’t taking any risks, you aren’t making the move toward possible rewards, and, of course, without the rewards, you’ll never get anywhere.

6. Consistency is good, until it becomes prohibitive. 

This is a complicated mental state to try and achieve, but it’s an important one. For the most part, consistency is incredibly important. For example, if one of your goals is to accrue wealth through investments, you have to invest a certain amount of money every month or you’ll lose momentum. However, there’s a point at which consistency does more harm than good—when it starts to lead you down the wrong path, such as when you’ve developed a bad habit or an unproductive routine. It’s hard to spot when these “bad” kinds of consistency crop up, but you’ll need to closely watch for them.

7. Nothing is ever perfect. 

Accepting the reality that nothing is perfect helps you in countless areas. You won’t be as worried about taking risks. You won’t be as hesitant about starting a new project. You won’t be as deterred when something goes wrong, or when you overlooked a major flaw. You won’t find yourself perpetually waiting for the “perfect” time to launch a product, and you won’t abandon your goals just because you didn’t achieve them in the way you first expected.

It’s not easy to achieve these mentalities. Don’t expect to adopt them instantaneously. You’ll most likely have a hard time accepting some of them, especially if they conflict with your inherent and learned views of the world. But if you can slowly integrate them into your ongoing mental state and accept their maxims as truth, you’ll start making better decisions and forming habits that will one day lead you to the success you’ve always dreamed of. Remain patient and never stop moving forward.

13 Ways to Take Care of Yourself Every Day

I found this great article on success.com. My favourite is number 12, what's yours?

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Don’t get stuck in an unhealthy daily grind. Here’s how to work “me time” into your busy schedule. 

It’s 7:30 a.m. and your alarm is blaring. Squinty-eyed, you reach for your phone, fumbling to swipe that horrible noise off, sinking back into the mattress, your eyes fading to black again… until you shoot straight up, eyes wide open, realizing you’ve already pushed snooze three times. You’re late. So you bolt out from under the covers and, like a blur, get dressed and go to work.

You’re at the office (finally), and a million emails have rudely generated in your inbox, so you start shooting off responses, only to reply to the ones that come back seconds later. You only get up when nature calls and your stomach yells for food. Another blur and it’s already dark. Time to climb back under the covers…

Sleep, wake up, work. And repeat. That’s a daily grind that will have you burning out the next time your alarm goes off. There’s more to life than work. How can you make sure you’re getting a healthy dose of “me time”?

We asked the Young Entrepreneur Council, “What is one thing you can do every day to take care of yourself, before your work?” to find out.

1. Set specific time slots when you don’t work.

Focusing on work is a great excuse for not taking care of yourself. I have set specific time slots where I won’t work and will instead spend time on my family and me. These slots are first thing in the morning (before 8 a.m.) and dinnertime (5 to 8 p.m.). Except for events I must attend, these slots are sacred times for me to spend with my family and not work. Setting this up has been life-changing.

—Joshua Dorkin, BiggerPockets

2. Start your day off with meditation.

I start every morning with a short 5–10-minute meditation using an app called Beditations. The meditation helps me visualize the things I’m most grateful for and allows me to minimize negativity and distractions. I find that early morning meditation increases my self-awareness and helps me put into perspective what really matters. I also tend to be much more positive, energetic and happy.

—Kristopher Jones, LSEO.com

3. Work out.

I get up early most mornings and head to a free, outside workout called F3. Aside from obvious health benefits, it clears my mind and gets me in touch with the outdoors and in the company of good friends to start the day.

—John Dillard, Big Sky Associates, Inc

4. Get enough ZZZs.

The scientific benefits of sleep are innumerable. More sleep equates to more happiness, better health and improved decision-making. Not to mention that it detoxes the brain. In order to do your best work, it’s critical to consistently recharge your batteries.

—Ryan Stephens, Ryan Stephens Marketing

5. Write a poem.

It sounds silly, random even, but this is something I’ve done every day that has dramatically reduced my stress while simultaneously opening my mind to many details in the world and opportunities that I would not have otherwise noticed. Start your day by writing a poem—even something as simple as a haiku.

—Matthew Manos, verynice

6. Keep a journal.

Life is very busy. My journal is in bullet-form so I can jot down things I did, people I met, how I felt, etc. It’s been a great outlet to help me be present, remember the little moments and sort out challenges in both my personal and professional life.

—Kate Levenstien, Cannonball Productions

7. Talk to friends and family.

Your friends and family are your biggest supporters. Even if you are having a very stressful and busy day, pick up the phone for a few minutes just to say hi to Mom or your best friend, and just talk about the good things that are happening in their lives. It will keep you grounded.

—Faraz Khan, Go Direct Lead Generation

8. Wake up slowly.

It’s not unusual for me to answer 10 to 15 emails before even getting out of bed in the morning. But starting the day off like this often sets a negative tone for the day, and truthfully most issues can wait. I’m learning that I’m much happier when I take 30 to 45 minutes to wake up slowly and shower before checking email.

—Jesse Lear, V.I.P. Waste Services, LLC

9. Read something fictional.

Refresh your mind by taking an afternoon break from your workflow and escaping to another world. Reading fictional stories stimulates the right side of your brain, sparking creative thought. That stimulation can make your day go a little smoother by thinking differently, solving problems in abstract ways and, most importantly, rejuvenating your soul.

—Mark Krassner, Knee Walker Central

10. Do yoga.

I have always been a very active person. I played water polo, swam, surfed, tried every sport out there. But in the last few years I started doing yoga a few days a week and it has changed my life. It’s the only place my phone is completely off and my mind is focused on myself only—no clients, employees or projects. It’s the easiest way to reset your mind and body in 60 minutes.

—Torrey Tayenaka, Sparkhouse

11. Listen to a podcast.

I find that one of the best practices to get fresh air and stimulate my brain is simply to take a walk and listen to a podcast with the podcast app that now comes standard on the iPhone. Do yourself a favor and listen to something non-business-related. For a little health or mindfulness, my favorites are Bulletproof Radio and Buddhist Geeks.

—Matt Wilson, Under30Experiences

12. Put yourself on your schedule.

When you put yourself on your schedule, you won’t have meetings and appointments that prevent you from taking care of yourself. I prefer to put myself as my first appointment of the day to make sure I don’t get caught up in the day and decide to skip out on important things that keep me grounded, like exercise and meditation.

—Natalie MacNeil, She Takes on the World

13. Make time for play.

Before becoming a father, I would have given an answer like many others: workout, meditate, yoga, etc. These are all exceptional ways to nurture yourself. After becoming a father, the greatest joy I can experience is playing with my children. It’s like taking that deep refreshing breath of sea air after a hard workout, but better.

—Derek Fitzpatrick, Ios Optics

Article source: 13 Ways to Take Care of Yourself Every Day

Learn how to create a new habit in 7 steps

7 Steps To Developing A New Habit

How long does it take to develop a new habit?

The time period can be any length from a single second to several years. The speed of new habit pattern development is largely determined by the intensity of the emotion that accompanies the decision to begin acting in a particular way.

Many people think, talk about, and resolve to lose weight and become physically fit. This may go on for years. Then one day, the doctor says that, “If you don’t get your weight down and improve your physical condition, you’re in danger of dying at an early age.”

Suddenly, the thought of dying can be so intense or frightening that the individual immediately changes his diet, begins exercising, stops smoking, and becomes a healthy and fit person. Psychologists refer to this as a “significant emotional experience.” Any experience of intense joy or pain, combined with a behavior, can create a habitual behavior pattern that may endure for the rest of a person’s life.

For example, putting your hand on a hot stove or touching a live electrical wire will give you an intense and immediate pain or shock. The experience may only take a split second. But for the rest of your life, you will have developed the habit of not putting your hand on hot stoves, or touching live electrical wires. The habit will have been formed instantly, and endure permanently.

21 Days To Break A Habit Or Make A Habit

According to the experts, it takes about 21 days to break or form a habit pattern of medium complexity.

By this, we mean simple habits such as getting up earlier at a specific hour, exercising each morning before you start out, listening to podcasts in your car, going to bed at a certain hour, being punctual for appointments, planning every day in advance, starting with your most important tasks each day, or completing your tasks before you start something else.

These are habits of medium complexity that can be quite easily developed in 14-21 days through practice and repetition.

How To Develop A Habit

Over the years, a simple, powerful, proven methodology has been determined for new habit development. It is very much like a recipe for preparing a dish in the kitchen. You can use it to develop any habit that you desire. Over time, you will find it easier and easier to develop the habits that you want to incorporate into your personality.

1) Make A Decision

First, make a decision. Decide clearly that you are going to begin acting in a specific way 100% of the time, whenever that behavior is required. For example, if you decide to arise early and exercise each morning, set your clock for a specific time, and when the alarm goes off, immediately get up, put on your exercise clothes and begin your exercise session.

2) Never Allow An Exception To Your New Habit

Second, never allow an exception to your new habit pattern during the formative stages. Don’t make excuses or rationalizations. Don’t let yourself off the hook. If you resolve to get up at 6:00 AM each morning, discipline yourself to get up at 6:00 AM, every single morning until this becomes automatic.

3) Tell Others You Are Practicing A New Behavior

Third, tell others that you are going to begin practicing a particular behavior. It is amazing how much more disciplined and determined you will become when you know that others are watching you to see if you have the willpower to follow through on your resolution.

4) Visualize Your New Habit

Fourth, visualize yourself performing or behaving in a particular way in a particular situation. The more often you visualize and imagine yourself acting as if you already had the new habit, the more rapidly this new behavior will be accepted by your subconscious mind and become automatic.

5) Create An Affirmation

Fifth, create an affirmation that you repeat over and over to yourself. This repetition dramatically increases the speed at which you develop the new habit. For example, you can say something like, “I get up and get going immediately at 6:00 AM each morning!” Repeat these words the last thing before you fall asleep. In most cases, you will automatically wake up minutes before the alarm clock goes off, and soon you will need no alarm clock at all.

6) Resolve To Persist

Sixth, resolve to persist in the new behavior until it is so automatic and easy that you actually feel uncomfortable when you do not do what you have decided to do.

7) Reward Yourself

Seventh, and most important, give yourself a reward of some kind for practicing in the new behavior. Each time you reward yourself, you reaffirm and reinforce the behavior. Soon you begin to associate, at an unconscious level, the pleasure of the reward with the behavior. You set up your own force field of positive consequences that you unconsciously look forward to as the result of engaging in the behavior or habit that you have decided upon.

I hope you enjoyed this post.  Please feel free to share with your friends and leave a comment. If you want to learn how to accomplish 10-20 times as much as the average person, click the link below to get my brand new

Article Source: http://www.briantracy.com/blog/personal-success/seven-steps-to-developing-a-new-habit

Organize Your To-Do List into These 4 Categories

Original Article Source: Organize Your To-Do List into These 4 Categories

Don’t let busyness derail your business—prioritize your tasks and weed out distractions. 

Tory Johnson

January 30, 2015 

I’m busy as heck but not getting anywhere. What am I doing wrong?

Entrepreneurs say that staying focused is a huge challenge. So it’s crucial to have an ongoing plan to keep you on track, a written outline that stays within reach and states what you intend to accomplish every day.

I set aside an hour or so every Sunday night to map out my week ahead. What will I focus on first thing Monday? Then on to Tuesday, and so on. Whom do I contact and why? What are my top priorities—no more than three—for the week, and what activities could distract me? The more detailed my calendar, the more prepared and focused I am. Committing my priorities to words focuses me mentally.

Despite that, distractions can still derail you. I often find myself pulled in too many directions—reacting to phone calls, email and other stuff that pops up. The triage method below—touching things only once and then moving on—keeps me from being overwhelmed.

1. Do immediately.

If a task feeds my priorities, my time is justified.

2. Delegate.

Someone else can and should do these to save me time. Even micro-business owners can benefit from an intern or temp.

3. Drop.

I ask myself, Will this make money for me right now or anytime in the future? Does it fulfill my current priorities? If the answer is no, I dump it.

4. Defer.

Some items might appeal but aren’t time-sensitive or high-priority. Delay them to a more convenient time.

Jenn Lee, an Orlando, Fla.-based small-business coach, says her biggest time-drain involves dozens of mini-projects each week. “I used to try and squeeze them in between phone calls, emails and posting on Facebook, but there were days when I’d leave my office without accomplishing anything. Something needed to change.”

So Lee sets aside 25-minute blocks of time each day, one for each of three key tasks she must accomplish. “I look at everything I need to do and assign them one of my blocks of time dedicated to that task. I set up three a day, usually two in the morning, when my brain works best on creative things, and one in late afternoon to finish up. Knowing that I have dedicated time to each task means I don’t fret all day over them, and I get better results because I’m focused.”

Another time-sucking aspect of Lee’s business was trying to help clients who, for whatever reason, couldn’t be helped. One client “never did what I advised her to do,” she says. “As a coach, a good part of what drives me is seeing entrepreneurs succeed after gaining clarity and guidance from me. But when I work with someone who isn’t moving forward, it drives me crazy.”

Ultimately Lee told the client she could no longer work with her. “Since then, I am very careful who I work with,” she says. “Before I take on clients, I ask a series of leading questions. Their answers help me see if I will like working with them. Working with the right client saves me time, and time is what we all need to get it all done.” 

How valuable are you?

The 7 Habits of Highly Impactful People - Habit Number 1: Values

You want to have impact in your business and life, right? 

Here’s the thing: you already do! But it’s not necessarily the impact you want to have. 

Having a positive influence in your business, community, and even the larger world takes disciplined effort. When you make those efforts habits, you’re on your way to big impact. 

In this series of 7 articles, I’ll share what I’ve learned from years of coaching people who want to have impact, and from my own work and research. You’ll learn the 7 habits of highly impactful people. 

These habits pay off hugely, not only in how much impact you have, but financially in your business too. Consciously impactful businesses mightily outperform those whose focus is just profit. 

Before we get started with the first habit, let’s spend a little time to be clear what we’re talking about here. 

What does it mean to be impactful?

1. Impact starts with you: While most of us want to create a positive impact through our business, in order to have impact, you have to start with you. How do you show up in the world? How do you want to be with people? What do you want to offer them? That has impact.

2. Impact is much more than your get-to-do list: To be impactful, you must first understand your larger mission or purpose in your business. I used to call it your Big Why. I now call it your Impact Purpose. That’s because the impact you want to have guides every aspect of your business. 

3. Your intentions will determine your impact: Author Gary Zukav wrote, "It is wise for us to become aware of our intentions and choose them according to what we want to produce." Whatever your intention is about your impact, whether it's conscious to you or unconscious, that's what'll play out. 

This series of articles is about making intentional choices related to the impact you want to create in your business and personal life.

Habit #1: Get Clear About Your Own Values 

A universal habit among some of the most impactful people in the world is that they became clear about their own values. 

Whether you’re aware of it or not, your behavior arises out of what you hold as most important, what you value. When you are clear about what values are the most important to you, you can use that awareness to have impact from that deeply rooted and grounded foundation. 

Here’s a practical exercise that will help you start to get clarity about your own values. 

Set aside some quiet time for yourself and start writing down value words that are deeply important to you. To start, write down whatever comes to your mind. You can always edit this list later. 

Think of situations in your life or business that were really powerful experiences. What values did you demonstrate in those situations? 

Here are some value words that may help you in creating your own list: 

• Honesty

• Integrity

• Professionalism

• Doing quality work

• Humility

• Kindness

• Fun

• Joy

• Compassion

• Treating people with respect

• Adaptability

• Dependability

• Creativity

• Warmth

• Balance

• Curiosity

• Freedom

• Persistence

• Resilience

If some of these values resonate with you deeply, you can certainly add them to your list. You may have others: spend some time and create your own unique list of values. 

Your list of values are not simple words but something much more. I call them ‘Pull Priorities’ because they draw you. They pull you forward toward the impact that you want to have. 

They come from inside of you and they don't push you like an outside force imposed on you. Like someone else’s ideas about what they think should be important to you. 

They give you a grounded center to work from and they help define you and the impact you want to have. 

To achieve mastery in the first habit of highly impactful people, revisit this list of your Pull Priorities regularly so that you are always clear about what you value. You can even post your Pull Priorities on a wall so that they're front of mind. 

Measure what you’re doing against the values you decided were important to you. Are they aligned? 

Keep the habit of clarity around your values and they'll help you with every other habit of highly impactful people that we're going to talk about in the upcoming articles. 

It’s an ongoing process to become impactful, both personally and with your business. Following the 7 habits of highly impactful people will increase the positive influence you have on the people in your work and life.

original article source

Financial Freedom explained

Some people use the words Financial Security, Financial Independence and Financial Freedom, interchangeably but here is what I have learnt from Tony Robbins.

Financial freedom is simply having all our current lifestyle costs and significant luxury items paid without having to work a day.  At this point we have accumulated enough savings and investments to work for us.  The annual income from these savings and investments will cover all costs.

In today's world, the amount of investment you will need to produce the annual income you require would average at about 20 times according to some experts.  So say for example you worked out your financial security figure (see details below) to be $24,000 then the amount of investment you will need to produce the annual income to keep you financially secure would therefore be $480,000.

The best way to start is to work out your security amount, write it down and work upwards, step by step.  Often we want it all right now but we can't jump before we can walk.   If we do not take the time to at least calculate the costs and know our figure, how will we know what we are working towards?

The stages to financial freedom as I have learnt it from Tony Robbins

	Stage 4	Financial Freedom	=	Every cost you have today+ 2 or 3 significant luxuries without having to work for it
	Stage 3	Financial Independence	=	All your current lifestyle costs paid for without having to work ever
				What is your monthly figure		xxxx
				Annual Income required to cover these		xxxx multiplied by 12
	Stage 2	Financial Vitality	=	Financial Security figure + 1/2 of (current clothing, entertainment, little luxury costs) paid for without having to work ever
				1. Financial Security		xx
				2. 1/2 of clothing costs		x
				3. 1/2 of cable tv, dining out, etc		x
				4. 1/2 luxury (gym, manicure, etc		x
				Total monthly		xxx
				Annual income required to cover these		xxx multiplied by 12
	Stage 1	Financial Security	=	Your basic needs paid for without having to work forever
				1. Your mortgage/rent		x
				2. Utilities for your home		x
				3. Food for your family		x
				4. Transportation costs		x
				5. Insurance costs		x
				Total monthly		xx
				Annual income to cover these		xx multiplied by 12

10 rules to success

Prepare yourself for success, do not give away your power.!

Check out a selection of Oprah's 10 rules to success, leave a comment.  Let me know what you think!